


Unstable?

by supernatasha



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: Cannibalism, Death, F/M, I need more Will and Bev, Slowly going mad, Violence, Will Loses His Mind, different POVs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-02
Updated: 2013-06-02
Packaged: 2017-12-13 17:37:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/826986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/supernatasha/pseuds/supernatasha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will Graham: losing his mind and teetering at the edge of violent insanity, or the center of a conspiracy to drive him mad and snatch his peace? He asks Beverly for help, and Beverly is unable to deny him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Shock

Will has none of the control the criminals do. He has none of their discipline, their meticulous planning and preparation, their design. He has, only, a wild mad ache accentuated with the desire to recreate.

So when the drugs stop working, he goes out to look for more. He flirts with women between shots of whiskey with the world spinning around him. He fucks women who don't notice his trembling hands and invariably find his stubble and dark circles attractive. He fights men who shake their heads at the blood soaking through his shirt and hand him bottles of beer. He fucks men with calloused hands and tender eyes and he forces himself not to look.

He wakes in beds and park benches and once with a start, walking through an alleyway barefoot with the grit of the concrete on his filthy blackened toes. Will never knows exactly where he is, hungover, still exhausted, shaking and sweating. He finds his way home by the streetlights or in buses, where he falls asleep and wakes in a town he's never heard of. Sometimes someone is with him. Other times he is alone. The person is never Alana or Hannibal or Jack or Abigail. The person is always a stranger. They talk and laugh with him, somehow comfortable, and he always wonders the same thing.

( _what did I say? how can anyone enjoy my company?_ )

He thinks about the word “unstable” a lot. Chairs are unstable when they can’t hold weight, legs giving out from under them under pressure. People are unstable when they can’t hold lives. Their legs do the same.

When Will gets home, his dogs bark and whine and push their wet snouts into his thigh. Sometimes they have food. Sometimes not. Each time, he feels disgust and filled with shame. He tries to recollect what he had done. He never remembers.

Hannibal asks him about it once. "Where do you go, those drawn out hours you don't answer your phone?"

He answers honestly, "I don't know."

Alana tells him, "I was outside your house. I brought soup. You didn't come home all night."

"I was busy," he mumbles and avoids her eyes.

 

The sound of a growl registers first. It is a low ongoing sound, throaty and animalistic. He opens his eyes to see a wolf, fangs bared.

Will sits up and blinks in the pale watery light of the barely risen sun. He is in the woods, desolate, dew gathering over his boxers and thin white cotton shirt. He shivers in the Virginia cold, the ground under him degrees away from frozen, and gets to his wobbly feet. The wolf snaps at him and Will steps back, falls over a branch and trips. He falls in something soft.

He is only grateful until he notices what he's fallen into: a bloody boneless body. Slit open from sternum to groin, and he's nestled right in its abdomen.

"Jesus fucking Christ," he sputters and tries to scramble up but slips in the wetness and only succeeds in making a bigger mess. By the time he stands, his clothes are soaked through. The metallic scent floods his mouth. Desperately, he wipes his hands on his already bloody shirt.

Abruptly, he turns to the side and vomits, tasting acid and phlegm. Will's eyes flick to the side and he regrets the action immediately. There is nothing else, only the body, its ribs removed almost surgically. Without a skeleton supporting it, the meat and skin look withered and lonely. The face is hiding back a secret between lovers and friends, serene and untouched, save a few splatters that must’ve happened with his thrashing. Eyes look straight back into his, dark, inviting.

(it’s a woman, fuck, _fuck_ )

A violent trembling spasm runs through his body and Will doubles over to catch his breath. He is suddenly freezing, tears spilling down his cheeks, brain incoherent. Shock.

The wolf is gone. Will wonders briefly if the wolf ever existed.

He steps back from the slaughtered woman and runs.

 

When he gets home, his dogs clamor for attention, keening, climbing over one another to reach him. The blood sticks to his clothes and body and Will smells of bile and metal. His heavy limbs struggle against the animals and he shuts the bathroom door, locks it.

(he lives alone with dogs; he never locks his door)

Will turns on the tap as hot as it will go. He crawls in the shower and lets the hot liquid run down his body. The water turns into bright pink swirls as it goes down the drain. It's enough to make him nauseous again, but when he closes his eyes, all he can see are cold dead eyes. Hesitantly, he peels off the first layer of his shirt. He doesn't think he'll ever be able to wear it again, even if the stains come out.

Did he do this? Kill her? Remove her ribs? Her blood had been so cold, her body soft. Rigor mortis hadn't set in. How had his clothes been clean? Had they been clean? He cannot remember. Perhaps he should go back, see the design, attempt to recreate the situation and see who did it.

_(and if I did it?_ )

He can see himself doing it, feel the blood warm and gushing over him, see her flesh tear apart under his blade as easily as silk fabric. He can see himself lay her down and arrange her hair, lay down before her, close his eyes and rock gently to sleep.

Suddenly overwhelmed, Will slides against the tiles and curls in on himself. He cries silently, sobs racking his slender frame. He never asked for this, for his life to be ripped apart, for this empathy to bear down on him like a burden he was not equipped to handle.

_(i couldn't have done it. i couldn't have. please don't let me have done it.)_

Wet and naked, he scrambles out of the shower, dripping everywhere. He battles the metal at the lock, his fingers clumsy, and the cold hair that hits him is more sobering than chilly. Will finds his phone on his desk. Ignoring the missed calls and unread messages, his slippery fingers fumble to dial the number he has inadvertently memorized.

When she picks up, he doesn’t let her talk, doesn’t let her register or react in any way, blurts in a messy and loud voice, “I need your help. Can you come?”

“I’m on my way,” she answers and hangs up.


	2. Adrenaline

Beverly stares at her phone, disbelieving.

“Will,” she sighs. “What’ve you gotten yourself into now?”

She’s a few blocks from the FBI building, but she turns on her blinker and heads in the opposite direction. His house is in the middle of nowhere; she’s never been there, but he mentioned the address to her one day, casually and with halting hesitant words telling her that she would probably enjoy the ambience.

Bev half hopes he’ll call back and tell her not to worry about it, but the entire hour it takes to drive to his cabin, her phone is quiet. She isn’t even sure why she agreed to come out without so much as a question. She pulls up to the yard and hesitates, the choice to go inside or to reverse the car is still hers. It turns out it isn’t. The front door opens and Will’s standing there. She cuts the ignition and joins him at the porch.

He’s holding two mugs of coffee and holds one out, avoiding her eyes.

“Thanks,” she murmurs and takes the mug, warmth seeping through the ceramic. It tastes bitter, too strong, too raw. She sips anyway.

He doesn’t talk so she doesn’t either. They stand, shifting feet and gazes. From inside, a bark.

“Winston. Newest member of the family,” Will offers.

Bev nods. The awkward returns. She wasn’t sure what she was expecting. She wasn’t at his every beck and command, leaving unfinished dinners and ditching dates, driving away from work without so much as an excuse to come running when he called.

(but she does, she always does)

The dark circles under Will’s eyes have gotten darker, larger. His hands look scrubbed to the point of damage, dry and chapped, fingers overlapping. He’s clenching the mug with unusual pressure, knuckles pale and skin flaking.

( _because he needs my help, that’s why_ )

“I- I woke up this morning without knowing where I was,” he says. His voice is hoarse, as though he had been screaming. “I don’t know how I got there,” he adds.

Bev waits for him to say more, but he doesn't. He called her here for this? She says, "Have you talked to anyone about this?"

"My psychologist, Hannibal-"

"Lecter," she finishes, nodding. "You're not the first one Jack sent to him. So why didn't you call him about the sleep-walking?"

Will shrugs and swallows, staring into the woods. His Adams apple moves beneath his scrawny neck, bones and sinew visible, clavicle, sternum. She imagines if she pulls up his shirt, she could count a ladder down his ribs. "He says it's all in my head."

"Isn't it?"

He stops fidgeting and looks at her, really looks. Not a quick glance he snatches back or accidental wandering contact. He purposefully looks straight at her. "I think this time, it may not be."

She doesn't shy away, returns with a swift, "Show me."

It seems to be the right answer. He leaves the mug on the porch and begins striding into the yard. Bev rushes to catch up. He doesn't talk the whole way there, but she can hear the words anyway. She can hear unsteady mumbling in his gait, slurred tongues in the jerky movements of his arms, a visceral groaning in the way he digs his toes into the soil when he walks. She thinks he’s hiding a shriek by pressing his lips together so hard he nearly bites through.

She is so busy studying him that she doesn't notice he's stopped until he says, "I can't."

Bev doesn't see anything. "Can't what?"

"Take you there. Go there."

And she hears now, pleading. "Is it far?"

Will shakes his head sharply. "There," he points ahead.

Bev zips her jacket up tighter and walks on without him. It doesn't take long for her to see it. She freezes in her tracks, feeling ice in her veins and fire in her bones. A primal beat sounds in her eardrums. Adrenaline.

(run, run now, run fast, and don't look back)

"Will," her voice is trembling, but he hears.

"I'm sorry," he is saying, repeating. "I'm sorry, I'msorryImsorrysorrysorry."

She forces herself not to bolt, takes a deep breath and kneels closer to the corpse. Its ribs are gone, that much was hard to miss. Blood pooled in its center. _Her_ center. She must have been beautiful in life, certainly still beautiful now despite her gruesome death. Pale skin nearly drained, dark eyes open, long brown hair spread around her head like a halo. Bev takes the sight in with an analyzing eye, trying to remain as objective and impartial as she could without a proper perimeter set up. There was no stench- not yet.

Bev turns back to Will, his eyes squeezed shut and still chanting the word sorry under his breath. She moves closer and puts a hand on his shoulder. He flinches and his lips quiver once, stop moving.

"Will, you didn't do this."

His eyes flutter open and, when they see her staring, dart away like frightened animals. "How?" he chokes out.

"Her bones have been removed with surgical accuracy. You couldn't have done it. The work- it's very well done."

"B-but I- I," he stammers and has to take a breath, "I woke up and she was there, there, she was there, just lying behind me."

"Did you have any weapons on you?" Bev asks firmly, refusing to let herself consider the possibility of receiving an affirmative answer.

"No."

"Did you see signs of struggle with yourself?"

"No."

"Do you have the capability of this level of medical expertise?"

"No."

Bev pauses, trying to think of her next question. "Will, where did the body come from?"

"I don't know," he whispers.

"I don't either." she tells him, "But I know it wasn't you."

Will doesn’t look convinced, she can tell from the tiny shakes of his head that he probably isn’t aware of. She tries to imagine herself in his situation, constantly losing time, hallucinating.

( _going mad?_ )

She had gotten into the system and looked over his file, words and phrases jumbling up and leaping out her, all meaning the same thing: not sound of mind. He must think lowly of himself to even consider the possibility of accidentally murdering someone in- in what? Sleep? Delusion? Bev doesn’t know. Perhaps a visit with Dr. Lecter was in order. She moves her hand away from Will’s shoulders and he relaxes visibly, as though her hand had been a live current threatening him.

No, he isn’t convinced. But she is.

As she watches Will helpless, forlorn and desperate to look anywhere but the corpse and her eyes, a sudden spike of anger shoots through her. Is this someone’s idea of a joke? Even her forensic team’s sick and macabre sense of humor stops miles short of this. Bev promises herself she will find who did this.  


End file.
